


You can't kill their spirit!

by HelloPotato



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, All Cheerleaders Die AU, F/F, Major Character Undeath, Title from movie poster, rewrite of an old fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:56:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloPotato/pseuds/HelloPotato
Summary: Ronnie is listening to music with headphones and aggressively not doing anything else when she sees something flicker in the corner of her eye. It’s gone whenever she turns her head to look, so she doesn’t, drumming her fingers restlessly to the beat and waiting.She feels a weight dip the mattress.“Is it any good?” asks Noah, looking cheerful and pale, perched on the end of the bed and squinting at her curiously. He doesn’t bear much resemblance to the sorry-looking body that they found in the forest, with only a smudge in place of what was a shattered cheek and concave skull.He’s a dead thing, but now so is she, so she just shrugs and offers him an ear to listen to.An All Cheerleaders Die AU ft. mysterious murders, dangerous sports, and zombies who hate calculus.





	1. Prologue: After

**Author's Note:**

> If this looks familiar to anyone, it’s because I’m trying to rewrite my shorter, incredibly confusing version of this (seriously, it made no sense to read, rip). 
> 
> See end notes for detailed warnings. Stay safe :)

Looking back, Ronnie wonders whether she can pinpoint the exact moment that her life went to hell.

It’s something that she thinks about now, at mass, in between standing and kneeling and standing again. With Matthew on one side of her in the pews, fidgeting and casting longing looks out the window at the sweltering Virginia summer (like he’d rather kick a ball around in this heat than be stuck listening to their priest drone on and on), and Declan on the other, mind clearly a million miles away (like he’s planning world domination instead of listening to their priest drone on and on), there’s no one to notice that she’s not _hearing the word of God_ or whatever. She can drift a little, focus on something that isn’t how uncomfortable the kneelers are. At least their church has ones that are padded, even if the stuffing is misshapen and the seams are splitting from the pressure of generations of bony knees.

Maybe, she thinks, it all started with her father’s murder. Finding his body in the garage with his head bashed in, blood dribbling through the cracks in the cement. She can still remember the smell of it - metallic and meaty, like when Niall Lynch butchered one of their sheep - mixed in with gasoline and the lavender that her mother had just finished planting in rows out the front of the house.

Objectively, finding your dad’s brains splattered across the driveway is sort of a life-ruining event. The crushing horror of seeing him crumpled on the ground, her shaking fingers trying desperately to find a pulse; the numb shock of the days that followed; the funeral; the savage anger that lasted far longer than the shock did, anger at herself and at God and at her father for being a _fucking criminal_ and getting himself _murdered_ and _leaving them_.

Of course, it could have been something else that tipped the scales of her life from shitty to completely FUBAR. It’s not like she isn’t fucking spoiled for choice. Maybe it was when her mum stopped laughing, and stopped hearing her when she spoke, and stopped really being a mum at all. Maybe it was the day that they had to put her in a home. Or when she started fighting with Declan and never found a way to stop. The drinking. The fighting. Kavinsky. Maybe it was finding Noah’s body.

But if she has to pick a time, Ronnie figures it was probably the night that she died.


	2. Chapter 1: Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There is no real reason for Blue to be melting out in the sun like a dropped ice-cream. As much as she wants to pretend it’s because Addie is her ride home, and she is stranded until practise is over, that’s not the case – not unless she plans on riding four miles in the wrong direction balanced on Addie’s handlebars._
> 
> Addison and Blue vs. College Applications

Sitting in the bleachers after school, biology textbook balanced on her lap, Blue wants to ask Addison what the hell she was thinking, adding cheerleading to her overloaded schedule.

It’s almost criminally hot outside, the sun beating down and burning the tip of her nose where she forgot to rub in sunscreen. Out on the pitch, girls are milling around chatting or plopped down on the wilted grass to stretch, all of them looking about as sweaty and irritable as Blue feels. Addie is standing off to one side with a girl whose gleaming presidential smile is visible even from fifteen feet in the air, absently stretching her arms while she nods along to whatever the girl is saying.

Looking at their red faces makes her feel obscurely guilty as she sucks down water, waving a question booklet back and forth in front of her face as a fan. _T_ hey knew what they were getting into, she reassures herself. And they are athletes, despite whatever bullshit the football team says - if they didn’t bring water with them on a day like this, then they’re idiots, and it’s not her problem.

Still, she hunkers down in her seat a bit more and checks that her extra water bottle, which is absolutely not for Addie after she finishes practise, isn’t getting too hot in her bag beneath the seats. Sliding a pair of sunglasses onto her face (they were Persephone’s, once, with tortoiseshell frames), she tries to focus on her biology homework and ignore whatever Girl President is saying to rally her troops down below.

There is no real reason for her to be melting out in the sun like a dropped ice-cream. As much as she wants to pretend it’s because Addie is her ride home, and she is stranded until practise is over, that’s not the case – not unless she plans on riding four miles in the wrong direction balanced on Addie’s handlebars. She should probably go home, do her homework at a table instead of resting it against her legs. Even if her room is barely cooler than outside, with no air-conditioner and a stand-alone fan, at least she wouldn’t be inhaling so much dust.

There’s nothing keeping her here. Nothing, really, except Addie’s quiet and obvious nerves about going to her first cheer practise of the year. She'd been wound so tight during last period that Blue was half-tempted to poke her in the arm and see if she dimpled at all beneath her finger, or whether she had gone full-on rigor mortis from anxiety. Blue had watched her walk onto the pitch a few minutes ago like she was facing a firing squad, shoulders visibly tensing as one of her new teammates gave her a friendly pat on the back.

Her shoulders had dropped a bit, though, when she looked up at the bleachers and saw Blue sitting there, homework shoved to the side and one of Orla’s paperbacks held in front of her face like a shield, paparazzi style. She had waved, with that pleased little smile she sometimes makes when people surprise her by being kind.

It’s easy to ignore the sun, and the dust, and the uncomfortable looks some of the other cheerleaders throw her, when she gets to see Addie smile like that.

She hasn’t been doing much smiling, even by her standards, the past few months. Not since her last appointment with the guidance counsellor, just before school let out for the summer. Blue can remember how blank Addie’s face had been, how tired she had looked sitting in their corner of the cafeteria, toying with her food while she filled her in on the latest bit of bad news.

Perfect grades at a school like theirs wouldn’t make Harvard or Yale want her. Not when the rest of her transcript was empty. She hadn’t so much as acted in a play, hadn’t done anything to boost her application.

“Colleges want well-rounded people,” the counsellor had told her, with a reasonable amount of sympathy.

Never mind the fact that she’s the best student at their school, Blue thinks bitterly. Never mind how hard-working she is, or how dedicated, or how funny. Never fucking mind that she’s been working multiple jobs for longer than she can legally admit to, let alone put on a CV.

She takes a deep breath and leans back in her seat, watching a scrap of cloud float across the sky.

Honestly, she’d ask what the hell Addie was thinking, adding something else to her frankly overcrowded plate, but she already knows. _This is bullshit. This is unfair. Life’s unfair, why did I think this would be any different?_

Except Addie doesn’t think like that. Blue figures that she’s putting it off until she’s in college, wowing her professors with her scary-smart brain. No point dwelling on how hard your life is when you’re stuck in the middle of it. Doesn’t make it any easier. Doesn’t stop the money in your bank account going down. Doesn’t make the bruises go away.

Instead, Addie did what she always does. Stood back up, dusted herself off, and kept on going. She and Blue spent the first week of their summer break going over the list of extracurriculars their school offered, trying to see what they could fit around homework and jobs and chores. They both jumped at the idea of debating (Addie loves research, Blue loves tearing down ignorant assholes), but once that was done there wasn’t much left.

For a school that focuses so much of its paltry funding on sport, there weren’t many girls teams to choose from. Field hockey was out – you had to buy your own equipment. Softball practises ran before school, and Addie couldn’t give up her factory shift.

That pretty much left cheerleading, which was the same as saying that pretty much left nothing. As many talents as Addie had hidden up her sleeve, a secret flair for gymnastics wasn’t one of them. And even a team like theirs, which hadn’t made it past regional competitions since the '70s, wanted more from its members than a can-do attitude and the ability to change a flat tyre.

They were lying in the spiky grass in her backyard, grumpily bandying ideas back and forth and getting nowhere. Apart from the occasional breeze ruffling through the trees, and the buzzing of the mosquitos crawling all over their skin, it was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that they both screamed a little when her aunt Calla dropped down next to them in the dirt.

Turns out she’d overheard their conversation (“So, you were eavesdropping,” Blue said, amused. Calla ignored her).

Blue spent the first week of her break looking over options; she spent the rest with Calla, watching her bully Addie into trying a handstand. They were both a little scared to ask Calla where she picked up the terrifying ability to fold herself like a pretzel (Blue’s still crossing her fingers for a secret past as a circus performer), but she was a good coach, if an unconventional one. Calla found Addie amusing more than anything, and Addie found her a bit alarming, but she helped Addie learn how to throw herself into the air, and how to let her hands leave the ground and trust that her feet will find their way back underneath her.

It wasn’t a complete disaster.

School started up again, and one tryout later, Addie’s college dreams were back on track.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Write Fast! Edit Never! Post Now!
> 
> If anyone's worried about Blue’s college application – she volunteers once a week at a nursing home. The elderly ladies love telling her scandalous stories about when they were young. Alas, Addie needs to work on weekends, and so she’s stuck with one of the most injury-causing sports in the world. But we'll ignore the reasons why she'd never pick cheerleading bc ~plot~.


	3. Chapter 2: Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m fine,” Addie reassures her, pulling a tired but genuine smile from god-knows-where. “My hands just slipped.”_
> 
> _Gansey still frowns. “Maybe we should stop for the evening.”_
> 
> _“No,” Addie says, too quickly. The last thing she needs is people being mad at her for cutting into their practise time. She also doesn’t need Gansey babying her, not when she’s shown up to practise after spills that were much worse than the one she just took, and nowhere near as accidental._
> 
> The Plot Thickens

To say she’s surprised, the first time that Ronnie does anything but laugh when she eats dirt trying out a new move, would be a serious understatement. She’s staring at the sky and contemplating just lying there until practise ends when a hand is pretty much shoved into her face. It’s nails are bitten down and it’s connected to an arm that is smooth and brown except for the ridged skin of its forearm. Leather bracelets circle the wrist.

Addie can’t help but stare at it in confusion, as if she has never seen a human hand before.

Nobody knows exactly why Ronnie joined the cheerleading team, only that it had something to do with Rachel ˜Please, call me Gansey” Gansey. Most people don’t even question it at this point, too put off by her foul mouth and fouler temper to bother asking. They're all just grateful that she is too small to go at the bottom of the pyramid, because nobody trusts her to stop them from falling.

Fingers clicking obnoxiously in front of her nose snap her out of her daze. Addie reaches up and grabs the hand offered to her, trying not to enjoy the obvious strength that Ronnie uses to pull her upright.

_Her grip is surprisingly calloused for a rich girl_ , she thinks. It feels like it would if she spent her weekends working with her hands, instead of shopping or whatever it is that rich girls do (Blue says she’s being sexist whenever she makes the mistake of saying stuff like that out loud, but Addie knows that she secretly agrees).

They stand for a moment, hands still tangled, both a little bit breathless; Addie from landing hard on her back on sun-baked earth, and Ronnie – actually, she’s not sure why Ronnie looks like she’s catching her breath. Maybe she’s heavier than she thought?

She hears footsteps behind her and turns, their hands somehow still clasped, to see Gansey hurrying towards them. Her eyes are darting worriedly from the two of them to their joined hands, like she’s less concerned about Addie falling and more concerned that Ronnie is going to use her grip to judo flip her.

Her gaze does remind Addie that they’re actually standing pretty close to each other, close enough that she can feel Ronnie’s warm breath against her skin. Her approach seems to wake Ronnie up as well, and she quickly steps away from Addie and drops her hand. The sudden distance feels cold after sharing body heat for a few seconds, and she’s irritated at herself for noticing something like that without quite knowing why. It’s not like it isn’t still disgustingly hot outside, despite the lengthening shadows that are creeping their way across the pitch. Night doesn’t bring with it the same promise of cooler temperatures that it did when her parents were young. _Global warming_ , Blue had once explained, leaning back on her elbows and staring up at the stars slowly winking into existence above them. _Fucking us over in new and exciting ways._

Gansey comes to a stop in front of them and flashes one of her gleaming white smiles. Wrapped in a cream coloured cardigan in defiance of the heat, she looks pretty and put-together in a way that Addie, who has grass stains on her skirt and can feel her hair coming down from its ponytail, tries hard not to feel annoyed about. She has surprised herself, over the past few weeks, with just how much she likes the captain of her new team. Gansey is rich, horrendously, cluelessly so, but she is also bookish and a little bit goofy. And she has this way about her, like every moment that she gets to spend talking with you is somehow valuable. It’s sort of impossible to dislike her, with her nodding along so solemnly to everything that Addie says, as if her essay for English is the most interesting thing she’s ever heard.

She’d probably make an amazing politician.

“Are you okay, Addie?” she asks. She’s the only one coming to check on her after what was, admittedly, an impressive faceplant into a field turned to dust from lack of water over the long summer months. As much as Addie would normally assume that this has something to do with herself, and that her teammates are keeping their distance due to a secret disinterest in her wellbeing and general existence, she thinks that she can blame Ronnie for this one. Her glower is doing a good job at keeping people away, and even in a red skirt and bike shorts she still looks edgy and dangerous in the dying light.

“I’m fine,” Addie reassures her, pulling a tired but genuine smile from god-knows-where. “My hands just slipped.”

Gansey still frowns. “Maybe we should stop for the evening.”

“No,” Addie says, too quickly. The last thing she needs is people being mad at her for cutting into their practise time. She also doesn’t need Gansey babying her, not when she’s shown up to practise after spills that were much worse than the one she just took, and nowhere near as accidental.

Ronnie rolls her eyes. “It’s getting too dark to see properly, anyway,” she points out. “And they’re not going to turn on the stadium lights for us.” This makes Gansey frown further. Addie feels a sudden and bizarre urge to smooth out the lines on her forehead.

“The football team practises later than we do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they turn on the lights for them.” Now it is Addie’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Yeah, but that’s football. Let’s not kid ourselves that the school would pay the same electricity bill for the cheerleading team.” The whole town shows up to school football games, filling the stands with proud mothers and fathers reliving their glory days with anyone who will listen, popcorn and plastic cups leaping from exited laps whenever their quarterback kicks a goal (Or scores a touchdown? Some of the finer points of the game may have passed Addie by, despite how loud her father’s beat-up little television blares the score while she tries to study in her room. She assumes that spending her Friday nights travelling for away games and cheering during halftime will change that).

Ronnie grins at her. It’s a sharp, mocking sort of grin, nothing like Gansey’s genial smile. “Thank you, Parrish, for proving my point,” she says, saluting her with a bottle of water. “We might as well stop now.” There’s something else in her gaze, too, where it rests on Addie. Something assessing.

Gansey, bless her, remains clueless to any subtext their conversation may or may not have. She nods decisively.

“Let’s call it a night. Do you need a ride anywhere, Addie?”

Addie shakes her head. “I’ve got my bike.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Ronnie groans. “Let her do something nice for you, Parrish. Throw the girl a bone.” Both Addie and Gansey turn red at that, although Addie thinks hers is more due to irritation than Gansey’s is.

“Veronica, please -“ Gansey starts to say, but Ronnie waves a hand dismissively and cuts her off.

“Whatever, spare me the lecture.” She looks to Addie. “Ride home in the dark if you want. Just don’t complain to me when you fall and break your wrist and get kicked off the team.”

Addie grits her teeth. Ronnie says stuff like this sometimes, riling her up seemingly for the hell of it. Something is off this time, though, the snark not quite as biting as usual. With her edges worn down from a long practise, Ronnie's asshole abrasiveness sounds an awful lot like concern.

Or maybe Addie’s brain has fried from the constant heat.

“Can my bike fit in the boot?” she asks Gansey reluctantly. Gansey brightens.

“Of course!” she says, at the same time as Ronnie snorts and mutters “doubtful”.

Addie tries not to feel like she’s making a mistake as she tracks down her bag and slings it over one shoulder. Gansey quickly calls an end to practise, sending girls out into the night in small, shadowy groups that split off across the pitch, all heading towards the dimly lit parking lot.

It’s just the three of them left on the field, the sun now well and truly set below the horizon. Gansey twirls her ring of keys absently around one finger, beaming.

“So, Addison,” she starts, her voice confiding, and Addie feels a thrill that could be excitement or apprehension shiver its way down her spine. Ronnie is a presence behind her, solid and warm.  

“What do you know about Noah Czerny?”

**Author's Note:**

> This vaguely follows the plot of the movie 'All Cheerleaders Die', so warning for: death, murder, gore, drowning, body horror, ritualistic raising of the dead. Unlike the movie, there is no rape or re-murdering of already-murdered zombie teenage girls. Or cannibalism.
> 
> Also includes slight references to self-harm, child abuse, religion, homophobia/transphobia. Contains swearing and brief use of ableist/insensitive language from some characters. I think that's it!
> 
> With regards to making most of the characters female – a girl is a girl is a girl, and 'anatomy' has nothing to do with it. Blue and Henry are trans, Addie is cis, and I don’t have concrete headcanons for the rest. It'll be mentioned in-fic, but it's not a huge focus because a) we're here for zombies and blood and b) more importantly, I'm not trans and I would make a complete hash of it. If you pick up on any douchebaggery on my part please, please let me know!


End file.
